His heart stilled before surging against the walls of his ribs.
She lifted her hands, only to let them drop back to her lap. ‘I’ve been trying to come up with five fool-proof topics of conversation so that...’ She shrugged again. ‘So that I’m pulling my weight.’
In that moment he wanted nothing more than to tug her into his arms and hug her. He had a feeling that would be the last thing she’d want. He contented himself with leaning towards her instead. She wore a soft floral scent and he pulled it as far into his lungs as he could.
‘I don’t expect you to become a sudden chatterbox. It’s not who you are. I don’t want you to change. I like you just the way you are. So does Carla.’
Was she worried that the better they got to know her the less they’d like her? The thought disturbed him.
‘It’s just...you and Carla are so bubbly and fun. I should hate to put a dampener on that.’
She thought he was fun? A smile tugged through him. ‘You mean Carla and I are noisy chatterboxes who dominate the conversation and won’t let anyone else get a word in edgewise.’
Her eyes widened. ‘I did not say that!’
He burst out laughing. After a moment she rolled her eyes, resting back in her seat.
‘You must’ve worked out by now that Carla and I love an audience.’
She gave a non-committal, ‘Hmm...’
‘And you have to remember Thierry will be there, and no one could accuse call him of liveliness.’
‘I’m not sure I want to be compared to Thierry.’
He tried a different tack. ‘How did the school group go this afternoon?’
Her face lit up. ‘They had a great time. It’s so funny to watch them the first time they touch a snake or a lizard.’
He picked up the book sitting on her coffee table—a recent autobiography of a famous comedian. ‘Good?’
‘Yes, very. She’s as funny on the page as she is on the television.’
He set the book back down. ‘Did you hear about that prank the engineering students at the university pulled with the garden gnomes?’
She sent him an odd look. ‘I saw the photos in the paper. It was rather cheeky...but funny.’
‘What’s a dish you’ve always meant to cook but never have?’
Her frown deepened. ‘Um...veal scaloppini.’
‘I couldn’t help noticing that these cottages don’t have any off-street parking.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘And...?’
‘And I didn’t see a car parked out the front, which leads me to conclude that you don’t have a car.’
She folded her arms. ‘That’s correct.’
‘Are you planning to get one?’
‘Maybe.’
‘When?’
Her forehead creased. ‘What is this, Dylan? Twenty Questions?’
‘There you go. There’s your five topics of conversation, should you need them—a funny incident at work, a book recommendation, a local news story, does anyone have a recipe for veal scaloppini they’d recommend, and I’m thinking of getting a small to medium-sized hatchback—what should I get?’
She pushed her hair back behind her ears, all but glaring at him, before folding her arms again. ‘How do you know I want a hatchback?’
‘You’re young and you don’t have kids, which means you don’t have to settle for a station wagon yet.’
She unfolded her arms, but then didn’t seem to know what to do with them. She settled on clasping them in her lap. And then she smiled—really smiled—and it lit her up from the inside out. Her dark eyes danced and he felt a kick inside that should have felled him.
‘Five topics of conversation—just like that.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘You managed it effortlessly. How can you make it so easy?’
‘Probably the same way you can identify the difference between a bush orchid and a noxious weed.’ He grinned, referencing an incident earlier in the week when he’d set about eradicating the wrong plant.
She continued to stare at him as if he were amazing, and he had the disconcerting feeling that he could bask in that admiration forever. He shrugged. ‘Practice. In my line of work I have to talk to a lot of people. Though, if the truth be told, the sad fact is that I have a talent for frivolity and nonsense.’
‘Good conversation is neither frivolous nor nonsensical.’
He waggled his eyebrows. ‘It should be if you’re doing it right.’
She didn’t laugh. She met his gaze, her face sober. ‘It’s not nonsense to put someone at ease.’
His gut clenched up all over again. If he continued to put her at her ease would she eventually let him kiss her?
He stiffened. He and Mia were not going to kiss. They weren’t going to do anything except find out if Thierry deserved Carla. Full stop.
This was nothing more than a case of opposites attracting. He and Mia were too different—too mismatched—to make things work in the long term. And he refused to do anything to hurt her in the short term. She’d been through enough.
* * *
By the end of dinner Dylan could cheerfully have strangled Thierry. The only contributions he’d made to the conversation had been negative, except when Carla had won a grudging concession that his gourmet burger was ‘okay’.
Mia, for all her worry, had been a delightful dinner companion. And nobody had needed to ask her if her burger was good. The expression on her face after she’d taken her first bite had made him grin.
Thierry had scowled.
From what Dylan could tell, scowling was Thierry’s default setting.
When a lull had occurred in the conversation Mia had mentioned the book she was reading and asked if anyone else had read it.
Thierry had ignored the question.
Carla had invited Mia to join her book group.
Mia had kept her expression interested, but in her lap her fingernails had dug into her palms, creating half-moons in her flesh that he’d wanted to massage away.
She’d swallowed. ‘Are you sure I’d be welcome?’
‘All are welcome! We meet at the library on the first Wednesday of the month.’
‘Well...thank you. It sounds like fun.’ And she’d promised to read the following month’s book.
Dylan had wanted to hug her. He hadn’t known that asking her to befriend Carla, and the specific details involved, would be so difficult for her. The thing was, friendship didn’t seem to be an issue at all. He sensed that both women genuinely liked each other. But going out and mixing with people was obviously a challenge for Mia.
He couldn’t help thinking, though, that locking herself away and hiding from the world wasn’t the right thing to do.
He’d taken his cue from her, however, and gone out of his way to invite Thierry for a game of golf. Thierry had declined, saying he didn’t play the game. Dylan had then tried inviting him out on his yacht, but Thierry had declined that too, saying he was too busy with work at the moment.
His heart had sunk when Carla had avoided his gaze. What on earth did she see in the man?
Now dinner was over, and they were finally seated in the cinema—Mia on one side